Custom firmware build for R9000/R8900 v. 1.0.4.38.3HF

[Voxel]

Not planned release, goal is to fix CVE-2020-8597.

Continuation of:

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/custom-firmware-build-for-r9000.40125/
. . .
https://www.snbforums.com/threads/custom-firmware-build-for-r9000-r8900-v-1-0-4-38hf.61402/
https://www.snbforums.com/threads/custom-firmware-build-for-r9000-r8900-v-1-0-4-38-1hf.62549/

New version of my custom firmware build: 1.0.4.38.3HF.

Changes (vs 1.0.4.38.1HF):

1. PPP vulnerability CVE-2020-8597 is fixed (score of 9.8/10).

https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-8597​

2. curl package is upgraded 7.68.0->7.69.1.
3. libiconv: make an order in patches.

The link is:

https://www.voxel-firmware.com (thanks to vladlenas for his help with hosting).

Voxel.

 

[KW.]

I have for some time now used Voxel firmware with Kamoj addon on my Netgear R9000.

I want to start this review with Netgears firmware. The company has very good hardware if you want to pay the price but what you get with it is crap. I was happy with a better router that could cover my home that others did not live up to. I was also happy with Plex right from the router with is worth very much in my opinion. It is also easy to set up music and other stuff for quality of living.


But that's the end. As other companies make it easy to try to get some control over your childrens screen time with easy settings Netgear want you to pay Disney. If you want to talk about privacy Netgear will make it hard for you. My impression is that netgear is a big company that dont bother to much. They make good hardware and the customers should be thankfull whatever crappy firmware they throw upon you, and in some way they are right. What can you do?

Well the solution is some people that should be paid by Netgear.

I found Voxel I downloaded his firmware and im a happy amataur. I take the time to read tutorials but there is were my knowledge ends.

Voxel is pretty easy to use if you can read tutorials. Suddenly you have allot more options with your router.

For me the most important is to use it with wireguard VPN that make a VPN connection as fast or maybe a few percent slower then the internet speed you pay for.

Its not about the goverment. I am not too afraid of the goverment even if I never know what goverment that will be the authority of my life tomorow. I just dont feel comfort in knowing that every thing I search will be saved by law in my country 10 months.

And I feel even less comfort in knowing that everything my children does is mined, analysed and used to take adavantage of them in their future life. For me in my country right now maybe the goverment is not the big threat. But it is a god damn duty to protect, as good as you can, your children from
monitoring eyes, state or corporate. Its a god damn duty to protect them from commercials that try to raise them with advantage of there own data and habits.

Netgear failed to give a happy amateur like me this option. Voxel solved this problem. But to get the powerful router of R9000 its full capacity you also have Kamoj. He is the one that used Voxels firmware to make it easy to block commercials, to block google analytics and other big corporations that not only make money but more important power of being the all seeing eye of human behavior.

These programmers have made a little safe haven in our home. You can say its dont change the course of the world. Still in a home with Voxel and Kamoj you are on your own. That feeling, meaningsless or not is the core of humanity. The home should be the place that you control and were you have integrity.

My R9000 is now not only a router that provide internet but a tool for entertainment and knowledge that I can trust.

I hope the people with programming skills will keep this up so our hardware is becoming even more powerful on our own terms.

 

[kamoj]

Hurrah, that's a very thoughtful text about not only our community with routers,
but also the everyday life and today's world.
Thank you for sharing your very well written post!

 

[marka2k]

I love Voxel's Firmware and my hat if off to you!

However I am having some issues with this build. When I upgraded it erased all my settings when I tried to restore my settings from backup it would not, so I re-added my settings all was well until I rebooted my X10 at which time it reverted back to factory default. I am currently re-adding my settings but am i missing something?

Thank you

v/r

Mark

 

[Voxel]

I love Voxel's Firmware and my hat if off to you!

However I am having some issues with this build. When I upgraded it erased all my settings when I tried to restore my settings from backup it would not, so I re-added my settings all was well until I rebooted my X10 at which time it reverted back to factory default. I am currently re-adding my settings but am i missing something?

Thank you

v/r

Mark

Strange but my settings were kept... Of course I flashed this version before actual release and did not get such problem...

Voxel.

 

[Starrbuck]

I love Voxel's Firmware and my hat if off to you!

However I am having some issues with this build. When I upgraded it erased all my settings when I tried to restore my settings from backup it would not, so I re-added my settings all was well until I rebooted my X10 at which time it reverted back to factory default. I am currently re-adding my settings but am i missing something?

I had the same issue starting with v. 1.0.4.38 but it seemed to come and go -- sometimes when I rebooted it would keep the config and other times it would behave like a fresh new router. I even flashed stock and the same thing was happening, so my theory was the router's NVRAM may be going bad -- this seems to happen too often with R9000's. It is strange timing but I don't have another explanation. Basically my R9000 feels unusable since I never know when a reboot will lose all my settings. I've moved on from the R9000 because of this.

 

[marka2k]

Starrbuck

Thank you for the reply, not something I want to hear (obviously), this is the first time it has done it to me. What is weird is that when I tried to restore from the backup it stated completed and rebooted to activate settings but then came backup like a new router. I plan on rebooting after backing up using the current release, it if it loses my setting I will flash Voxel's firmware one more time for good measure then re-add settings and see if that solves the issue.

 

[Redbot]

I love Voxel's Firmware and my hat if off to you!

However I am having some issues with this build. When I upgraded it erased all my settings when I tried to restore my settings from backup it would not, so I re-added my settings all was well until I rebooted my X10 at which time it reverted back to factory default. I am currently re-adding my settings but am i missing something?

Thank you

v/r

Mark

This is happening on my R7800, just started after the last Voxel update

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/r7800-will-no-longer-save-settings-after-reboot.62773/

 

[marka2k]

I logged into the admin console and rebooted and the X10 retained settings, so as a test I powered down the router and restarted and it retained settings. I am at a loss on why it appears to be intermittent hopefully it will not occur again. Thank you all for replying and it is nice to know I am not alone.

Mark

 

[marka2k]

I got adventurous and tried to install Kamoj addon, I am back where settings are not saved.

 

[Starrbuck]

That is the same behavior I saw, @marka2k, except in the end I even tried flashing stock firmware and the memory would still intermittently not save.

 

[Stan Dragos Cristian]

Hello,

I have a bit of a problem with the auto-mounting script:

I have 2 drives and when i plug them in it mounts them like this:

/dev/sdb1 on /tmp/mnt/sda1 type ufsd (rw,nodev,noatime,nls=utf8,uid=0,gid=0,fmask=0,dmask=0,force)
/dev/sda5 on /tmp/mnt/sdb5 type ufsd (rw,nodev,noatime,nls=utf8,uid=0,gid=0,fmask=0,dmask=0,force)

It mounts sdB as sdA and reverse. While this is not a problem for readyshare it's a breaker for DLNA mediaserver (not plex)

When looking up the dlna conf file (/tmp/etc/minidlna.conf) it seems to mount the media path(s) according to /dev and not /mnt actual mount:

media_dir=/tmp/mnt/sda5/
media_dir=/tmp/mnt/sdb1/

the problem is that sda5 ot sdb1 does not exist in /mnt, they're reversed... so, naturally no content is displayed when accessing the dlna server from tv, pc or whatever...

I tried editing the dlna conf file, works for a short while, but it will changes back on files re-scan or router restart.

Any ideas how to fix this permanently ? Thanks

 

[Voxel]

Hello,

I have a bit of a problem with the auto-mounting script:

I have 2 drives and when i plug them in it mounts them like this:

/dev/sdb1 on /tmp/mnt/sda1 type ufsd (rw,nodev,noatime,nls=utf8,uid=0,gid=0,fmask=0,dmask=0,force)
/dev/sda5 on /tmp/mnt/sdb5 type ufsd (rw,nodev,noatime,nls=utf8,uid=0,gid=0,fmask=0,dmask=0,force)

It mounts sdB as sdA and reverse. While this is not a problem for readyshare it's a breaker for DLNA mediaserver (not plex)

When looking up the dlna conf file (/tmp/etc/minidlna.conf) it seems to mount the media path(s) according to /dev and not /mnt actual mount:

media_dir=/tmp/mnt/sda5/
media_dir=/tmp/mnt/sdb1/

the problem is that sda5 ot sdb1 does not exist in /mnt, they're reversed... so, naturally no content is displayed when accessing the dlna server from tv, pc or whatever...

I tried editing the dlna conf file, works for a short while, but it will changes back on files re-scan or router restart.

Any ideas how to fix this permanently ? Thanks

Scripts used in R9000 stock firmware and dealing with control of mount points are over complicated and there could be such bugs. Their goal was exactly to keep Plex working (even if the drive letter was changed e.g. from sda to sdb.

Workaround could be to force your router to rescan drives attached. Nullifying current records stored in nvram. But manual job and should be performed from telnet.

You should such values as plex_file_path plex_select_usb usbDeviceName and unset them in nvram. It is easy to find them using the code:

nvram show | grep sda

and

nvram show | grep sdb

after that continuously

nvram unset plex_file_path
nvram unset plex_select_usb
nvram unset green_download_path
nvram unset previous_green_download_path
nvram unset usbDeviceName
nvram unset node1
nvram unset node2
. . .
nvram unset node##
nvram commit

node# - it is root level dir/file; they are stored in nvram.

and after

rm -f /tmp/plexmediaserver/.usb_map_table

and reboot your R9000. NOTE: both your USB should be attached to R9000 when rebooting.

This should force your router to rescan your USB drive.

Voxel.

 

[marka2k]

Update: YMMV - My router ran fine since my last post then unexpectedly rebooted itself and reset all settings back to default. I setup basic settings and downloaded Netgear Firmware, I tried twice to do a reset using the reset button on the back it, it would do a partial reset but not a total for example it reset my internet connection but my admin password remained. I finally did a reset to factory default from the Admin GUI and flashed the Netgear Firmware and setup the router. I rebooted five times each time it held the settings, so I flashed Voxel latest and rebooted twice it also held the settings, I then installed Kamoj addon and configured also rebooted twice settings are holding. Prior to posting I rebooted and settings are holding, I am at a loss however I am encouraged that and hope that this issue is behind me. Maybe when I flashed 38.3 somehow it got corrupted during the flash?

Thank you all for responding and providing your experience.

Mark

 

[Voxel]

Update: YMMV - My router ran fine since my last post then unexpectedly rebooted itself and reset all settings back to default. I setup basic settings and downloaded Netgear Firmware, I tried twice to do a reset using the reset button on the back it, it would do a partial reset but not a total for example it reset my internet connection but my admin password remained. I finally did a reset to factory default from the Admin GUI and flashed the Netgear Firmware and setup the router. I rebooted five times each time it held the settings, so I flashed Voxel latest and rebooted twice it also held the settings, I then installed Kamoj addon and configured also rebooted twice settings are holding. Prior to posting I rebooted and settings are holding, I am at a loss however I am encouraged that and hope that this issue is behind me. Maybe when I flashed 38.3 somehow it got corrupted during the flash?

Thank you all for responding and providing your experience.

Mark

Didn't you try to 39.1HF?

Voxel.

 

[Starrbuck]

Update: YMMV - My router ran fine since my last post then unexpectedly rebooted itself and reset all settings back to default. I setup basic settings and downloaded Netgear Firmware, I tried twice to do a reset using the reset button on the back it, it would do a partial reset but not a total for example it reset my internet connection but my admin password remained. I finally did a reset to factory default from the Admin GUI and flashed the Netgear Firmware and setup the router. I rebooted five times each time it held the settings, so I flashed Voxel latest and rebooted twice it also held the settings, I then installed Kamoj addon and configured also rebooted twice settings are holding. Prior to posting I rebooted and settings are holding, I am at a loss however I am encouraged that and hope that this issue is behind me. Maybe when I flashed 38.3 somehow it got corrupted during the flash?

I was able to get my R9000 back to normal as well by flashing stock and doing factory reset from the GUI.

 

[marka2k]

@Voxel

I have not tried 39.1HF I checked the other day and it was not up yet or I missed it. I will try later today when I have time.

@Starrbuck

Glad you got yours working as well, not sure that will fix everyone that is having the same issue or not or just a couple of us?

 

[Starrbuck]

Glad you got yours working as well, not sure that will fix everyone that is having the same issue or not or just a couple of us?

Thank you, and, yeah, I dunno. Perhaps worth a shot for those that haven't tried yet.

 

[marka2k]

@Voxel

I updated to 39.1HF lost my settings however this time I was able to load the backup I created, readd Kamoj and recreated my OpenVPN Configuration all is well.

Mark